A Tribute to Optessa's Founder Srinivas (Vasu) Netrakanti

Molding lines are highly effective modes of production, developing a wide array of components and products ready for launch into the market. But these processes and protocols can be enhanced even further — they can be optimized for production efficiency, cost management, delivery reliability, and product quality control. Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solutions provide the capability your business needs to get the most out of holding production lines.

APS solutions bring together a range of tools, including production planning, line scheduling, and real-time monitoring capabilities that maximize throughput while keeping cost and resource intensity down. All of these tools are united by one key aspect — data. The APS solution draws upon up-to-the-minute data from both inside and outside of your operation.

This means examining inventory levels, resource availability, and equipment and personnel deployment. In addition, external data points provide further insight, including customer demand, delivery, and market forecasts. Together, a comprehensive approach to data processing and analysis delivers optimal results for molding line scheduling.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling software integrates with your existing platforms, drawing upon the data it needs to assess production capabilities and other key metrics. Data entry becomes streamlined thanks to secure communication between solutions while you retain complete control over plans and schedules. APS represents the perfect balance between automation and manual forecasting.

Analytical tools are built into the heart of the APS solution. Planning and scheduling software is about continual improvement and development over time. This makes analysis a key priority, and APS solutions give you the capability you need to gain real insight from your performance data.

With APS solutions on your side, you can define plans and schedules on a micro or a macro level. Set line-specific parameters or expand your view to achieve middle- and long-term production planning and forecasting. You can adjust key attributes as you work, while integration ensures that APS software is working from the latest datasets.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software leverages the power of automation and powerful tools as it enhances the way you run your operations. Working according to well-defined parameters, automated features build schedules effortlessly, streamlining a process that once would have consumed significant time and resources. At the same time, analytical tools provide profound insight into scheduling efficiency. This is software that is designed with real workforce scheduling improvements in mind.

Define your production, supplier and logistic limits according to reliable, data-backed planning components. Configure planning parameters to achieve an up-to-the-minute view of your business's capabilities, and then alter these parameters to reflect new data as your business grows. Create plans that are more than just feasible – plans that you can rely on for forecasting and operations.

Achieve more from your scheduling with streamlined and resource-lite tools. Build schedules quickly and easily, and achieve real operational flexibility with rapid adjustments. The scheduling component of the software puts you in the driver's seat, scheduling and rescheduling according to project demands. Bring all of this together with APS – your Advanced Planning and Scheduling solution.

Integrating directly with your existing software platforms, such as enterprise resource planning and inventory management solutions, APS makes it easy to leverage the latest data. Drawing upon up-to-the-minute resource and inventory information, as well as other key sets, APS solutions ensure that planning and scheduling meets the current and future demands placed on your business.

Set targets and objectives for your business's assembly lines, and then monitor progress towards these targets with formidable analytics tools. Make changes whenever you need based on goal attainment or shifting operational requirements, and make sure that production remains optimized on an ongoing basis.

Utilize intelligent tools that help you identify the ideal order for production. With this as your foundation, you'll find your business delivering on time and in full without fail, enhancing the relationships you have with your customers and with your partners in the supply chain. Eliminate production shortfalls by analyzing bottlenecks, then smooth out these inefficiencies with a better way of handling production and assembly.

Deploying Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software gives your assembly line operations the chance to leverage key benefits from automation. Craft production schedules based on automated commands that draw upon the latest data, and determine the most efficient order for your manufacturing processes – all while using only a fraction of the time and resources of a wholly manual procedure.

But manual operations still have a role to play. APS is about optimizing manufacturing and assembly, which means getting the very best out of your facility and enhancing capacity. Control is vital here – with APS, you'll be able to streamline operations with powerful automation while making manual changes to parameters and attributes wherever you need to.

Define production schedules based on up-to-the-minute data, thanks to powerful integrations with existing software solutions. Develop plans across your desired timeframe, achieving a reliable resource that maps out the next steps for your business. Do it all with a unified Planning and Scheduling solution designed with the specifics of your assembly lines in mind – we provide tailored solutions based on core operational needs, delivering near-, mid-, and long-term optimization for your lines.

Buffers are the constraints you place on your production plans and schedules, keeping your output within the key capability parameters of your business. With Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software, you optimize the advantages you receive from these buffers — reducing variability in your production output and ensuring reliable delivery again and again.

Data-backed APS solutions further enhance these capabilities. Drawing on data in real time, you gain the flexibility and agility you need to adjust these parameters as and when required. If your capacity expands, your buffers expand too, meeting demand while never overpromising. If bottlenecks emerge, planning and scheduling buffers scale back until the inefficiencies are ironed out.

APS creates smart and reliable processes. Apply buffers based on lead time capability, current and forecasted inventory levels, or existing production line capacity. Monitor and analyze these buffers in real time, achieving a production and manufacturing environment that is as dynamic as it is reliable. All of this reinforces your position in the eyes of your customers and clients and helps you foster strong relationships with core partners across the supply chain.

APS solutions work with a sophisticated array of data, ensuring that buffers are applied precisely in the way your operations demand. The software draws on diverse datasets. These range from market demand and customer deadline expectations to line capacity, inventory levels, material flow from suppliers, and lead times for specific products. With this data as a base, APS solutions continually assess production according to relevant metrics, supporting reliable delivery without variation.

Powerful integrations make this possible. The APS's in-built planning and scheduling tools receive data in real time from core sources, such as enterprise resource planning and inventory management software, achieving a communicative and collaborative network of digital solutions. This is where the 'real-time' aspect comes into play — buffers are applied based on up-to-the-minute data and reflect operational capacity defined from a single source of truth.

Analytics, monitoring, and adjustments can be automated, reducing the need for manual production planning and scheduling and eliminating human error. Teams retain oversight and control, providing crucial peace of mind during assembly and production projects.

Analytics tools examine internal and external data ahead of planning and scheduling. Drawing on data from diverse sources from within the facility, such as material, labor, and equipment availability, the APS creates a snapshot of current and future operational capacity. Meanwhile, sales data, customer orders, and market forecasts build a picture of market demand, both now and over the mid and long term.

While analytics tools provide the understanding, it is the smart, automated planning and scheduling features that ensure capacity aligns with demand. The solution applies machine learning capabilities to formulate production plans that meet demand in a reliable way, eliminating shortfalls and helping managers expand capacity in the future.

Scheduling tools provide line-based production ordering, defining the most streamlined route to finish and ship products without delay. Ongoing monitoring capabilities make sure that assembly and production lines remain in step with market demand, even as that demand changes.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solutions are designed with a more harmonious way of operating in mind. With these solutions, your plant capacity can effortlessly align with demand, eliminating the risk of shortfalls and missed deadlines. Drawing upon a wealth of different data points — including availability of materials and components, as well as inventory levels, equipment output capacity, and labor availability — the software works to develop the right plans and schedules to get you where you need to be.

APS software integrates within your existing digital infrastructure, drawing upon data from right across your network. This enables the APS to achieve a strong understanding of the factors that contribute to plant demand and plant capacity, accurately forecasting and defining these levels.

From here, the APS solution helps facility managers to decide on optimized plans and schedules that bring capacity into line with demand. The solution works proactively to identify demand fluctuations in the future, shifting planning and scheduling parameters accordingly.

Your business depends on supply network efficiency — the swift and reliable delivery of products to vendors or to direct customers. Without an optimized network of supply and delivery, your business is losing money and missing out on key opportunities for development and growth. This is where Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software makes all the difference.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling software does exactly that — it applies advanced tools that define effective production and supply plans, as well as line-focused scheduling to optimize the route to market. This means identifying bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and key cost centers within existing supply models, and then crafting a plan to iron out these points of friction.

This depends on integration. Your APS solution sits within your broader software ecosystem and draws upon internal and external data derived from these integrated pieces of software. An enterprise resource management solution delivers inventory and production data, while customer relationship management programs provide information on demand and consumer needs. Working together with these solutions, APS software has the data resource it needs to create plans and schedules that reduce costs and optimize delivery.

APS solutions craft smart plans and schedules that leverage the very best from your facility's capability. This means achieving a data-focused approach to assembly, production, and delivery, meeting demand, and eliminating wastage. Data feeds into smart algorithms that accurately predict and forecast demand fluctuations, reducing excess inventory and the costs that come with this.

Planning and scheduling also extends beyond inventory, linking up with supply and delivery routes to achieve comprehensive efficiency across the whole chain. By remaining ahead of demand and advising on ideal modes of transportation, supply network costs are reduced further and the need for emergency expedited delivery is reduced.

All of this is backed up with powerful monitoring and analytics tools. These tools work to keep delivery operating as it should — optimized, cost-effective, and fully aligned with customer needs.

Ability to Promise apps offer a new way of doing things for your business, improving customer relationships and supporting your team through order fulfillment and delivery. In the past, you might have become used to Available to Promise applications — apps that respond to customer order requests and provide delivery dates based on MRP calculations or black box statistics. These apps were static, based on out-of-date info and data, and prone to inaccuracy.

With Ability to Promise, we are looking at something very different. Ability to Promise apps work in real-time, drawing upon up-to-the-minute data understanding to deliver real-time delivery estimates. In doing so, the app utilizes information relating to current resource levels, inventory data, and known bottlenecks and constraints. This results in a smart process that not only assigns a delivery date but also actively calculates the earliest possible date for the customer.

A fully integrated solution, Ability to Promise apps sit within your broader digital infrastructure. This means data can flow securely and swiftly across the network, enabling real-time results for customers. Customers don't want to wait around, and so delivering this kind of rapid response is a must as you work to augment their experience.

Ability to Promise applications are built to implement a culture of real-time response into your workplace. Rather than keeping customers waiting, or disappointing them with inaccurate delivery estimates, the Ability to Promise methodology makes accuracy and timeliness a priority across each and every customer interaction.

Rather than relying upon historical data and future projections, this type of application provides delivery dates based upon actual plans and schedules. This is a major point of differentiation with earlier ways of doing things. Available to Promise applications, for instance, required an element of guesswork and projection on the way to reaching their conclusions — conclusions that were often inaccurate.

Ability to Promise puts accuracy first thanks to real-time data processing, creating a service that users can really trust. This focus on trust and accuracy translates to happy customers. It will make you and your team happy too, as the technology can be used to support future operational efficiency by slotting orders into medium- and far-term schedules.

APS solutions feature smart tools that direct order allocation in the optimal way. The software assesses the requirements of a new order and then analyzes resource availability to identify how these requirements can be met. If inventory levels are sufficient, the solution fulfills the order from existing warehouse stock. If inventory levels cannot match the order requirements, the software generates production plans so the order is delivered in full.

Production planning and scheduling tools are at the heart of the APS software, and these tools are designed to optimize assembly or production to enhance throughput while minimizing delays. For regular orders, short, mid, and long-term plans develop production efficiency to meet allocation requirements again and again, working within set parameters to help your business deliver without fail. Meanwhile, line-based scheduling uses smart tools to define the ideal timeline for production.

The APS's monitoring tools continue to assess and analyze across the whole production phase, providing updates and status reports at key points along the chain. This real-time information delivery keeps managers and team members in the loop at all times.

Order allocation is a critical step in the fulfillment and supply procedure. Allocating orders from existing inventory or from production and assembly lines on a just-in-time basis used to be a difficult process fraught with potential error. Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solutions do away with this difficulty, streamlining this phase of customer order fulfillment and delivery.

Automation has an important role to play here — automation that is driven by integration and communication with existing software within your business's digital ecosystem. By feeding up-to-the-minute inventory and production data into the APS solution, the software gains the insight required to make key allocation decisions. The result is a highly efficient process without the risk of human error.

But automation needs to be supported by manual control. The APS software monitors and analyzes order allocation in real time, giving your teams a clear picture of project progress and performance. By making key alternation and modifications along the way, your human personnel remain in control of order allocation. These human personnel can also manually input order data to create production schedules and plans on the fly, supporting flexibility and agility across the whole customer order process.